Renovation of chapels
The chapels were originally built by Sudeten German landowners from Chmelík (Hopfendorf in German) in the 19th and 20th centuries as an expression of thanks for the rescue or recovery of their wives, in order to keep the story in memory and as an expression of their Christian faith. All the chapels were dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The extinction of the chapels is connected with the historical development of the Vysoký les region. After the displacement of the Germans who had built and subsequently maintained the chapels, the interest in these monuments deteriorated until they ceased to exist. All three chapels gradually vanished in the course of the 1950s–1970s.
In 2012, members of the Association of Archaic Enthusiasts started the renovation of the chapels. By that time, only the lowest levels of the walls and the floor, or possibly only the foundations had remained of them. The renovation of all three vanished chapels took place in the course of four years, 2012–2015. The chapels were newly built above all thanks to donated material, finances, dozens of volunteer work sessions and fund-raising campaigns among the citizens. Some of the costs, above all larger one-time investments for instance for covering the roof or purchasing building material, were financed using various subsidy projects.
Naturally, the aim of the renovation of the chapels in Vysoký les is to rebuild three local vanished sacral monuments. One of the objectives is also to point out the disappearance, dilapidation and forgetting of monuments in our immediate neighbourhood and to draw attention to the past of our region. The main aim of the renovation is to get people, and the local inhabitants above all, involved in the chapel renovation process itself, in order to link them with the constructions. This can be attained by physical work on the renovation, donation of material, participation in pilgrimages and, last but not least, by visiting the recently renewed chapels. Without interest and the creation of a certain bond, the chapels would not be of much use and would probably soon cease to exist again. If they get into a wider awareness of the people, however, the chance that they will remain visited and maintained also in the future is much greater. The creation of the way of the cross that originally led to Schlesinger Chapel or the construction of a small bell tower at Killer Chapel is planned for the future, among other things. The project has been under way since 2012, coordinated by the Association of Archaic Enthusiasts. For more information about the chapels and the project of their renovation, follow this link.
